


Legacy

by Philomytha



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-15
Updated: 2011-05-15
Packaged: 2017-10-19 10:19:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/199780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Philomytha/pseuds/Philomytha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aral meets a Komarran whilst he's in hospital during <em>Mirror Dance</em>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Legacy

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Avantika's fic_promptly prompt: Aral and any Komarran, revenge at last.

Aral was supposed to be sleeping, but it seemed he'd done nothing but sleep for weeks and it didn't make any difference. And today he seemed to be able to think a little more clearly, a very small distinction, but at this level, he was discovering, he noticed these tiny changes much more. And if he told the doctors he couldn't sleep they'd give him something, and that would be the end of thinking clearly. So Aral lay awake and listened to the pre-dawn hospital noises.

His room, of course, was very quiet and peaceful. They'd cleared out all the other patients from this part of the hospital; it was just him and the staff here. But he could hear the hums of various machines and monitors he was attached to, the air conditioning unit, and some low voices from the corridor.

At least his hearing wasn't affected by all this medical nonsense. Aral listened as the voices grew nearer. There was a rattle and a splash, and then someone said, "Oh look. You've spilled it," in a malicious tone.

He couldn't hear the mumbled response.

"You're going to be late now," the voice went on. Another mumble, and then the response, louder and sharper. "You piece of Komarran shit!" There was another clatter.

Aral knew better than to try to sit up. Last time he'd tried that, he'd passed out and apparently sparked a huge medical panic, and then when he'd come around again he'd been lectured by Cordelia for what had felt like hours. His hand reached for the buzzer to call for someone, then hesitated. Was that the right move, here?

There was something horribly familiar about the voice. Not the person; he didn't recognise the person, but he recognised the style. Ges.

He knew, with utter certainty, then, what the next scene in the little drama outside his door would be. He was unsurprised to hear more footsteps, moving in the measured tread of one of his personal ImpSec guards making the rounds. His guard stopped, and said, "What is this? Get this cleaned up. Oh, it's you." The guard's voice was scornful. "Of course. Lazy idiot. You take jobs away from good Barrayarans and then you can't even do it right. Get this sorted out, and if you wake him up, there'll be hell to pay."

Aral closed his eyes. The guard continued on his patrol, the Ges-voice said with disturbing cheer, "See you later," and his footsteps went away, leaving only the Komarran cleaner.

He listened to the sounds of scrubbing outside, and wondered what to do about this. Wondered what he could do, when he couldn't even sit up, could barely finish a sentence. Perhaps it would have to wait till after the transplant.

The door to his room opened very quietly, and Aral's eyes snapped open again. It was the cleaner, with mop and bucket and sonic cleaner, and he began to clean Aral's floor, moving silently, never so much as looking at Aral. Aral wondered how many times he'd mopped this floor without Aral even noticing. Then again, there was a lot he wasn't noticing now.

The man was middle-aged, tired-looking, dressed in the standard hospital uniform with damp patches on his knees, his skin a few shades paler than was common on Barrayar and his light brown hair salted with grey.

"Come over here," Aral said. Whispered, really, because he couldn't speak much more loudly than that right now. The man jumped and looked at him for the first time. Aral hoped he wasn't going to have to repeat himself. He beckoned--well, waved his fingers, really, to save effort--and the man walked slowly forwards, still clutching his mop.

"I'm sorry," he blurted out, "I didn't mean to wake you up, sir--my lord--sir..."

Aral shook his head. "You didn't." Pause. Breathe. "You're Komarran."

He hadn't thought the man could get more tense, but he did. "Yes, sir," he said faintly.

"What's your name?"

That startled the man. "Jonas Kells, sir."

Aral looked at him for a minute, trying to take breaths deep enough to let himself speak. Even with the uncomfortable oxygen tubes in his nose, he never felt like he was getting enough air. Kells looked terrified of him, of everything. He wasn't going to say anything about what had been happening outside, Aral knew. He recognised the expression: a man who knows for certain that anything he does will only make his situation worse.

"Not many Komarrans working here," he said at last.

"No, sir."

Damn. He was going to have to keep talking to get the man's story out. "Why are you here?" he asked directly, since it was the fewest words. "Tell me."

Kells looked at him in mingled worry and fear. Aral supposed his laboured breathing was a little alarming if you weren't used to it. He made an impatient gesture, to the extent that he could, and Kells said finally, "I came over with my wife, sir. She's Barrayaran. We were living in Equinox, but her mother's very ill, so we moved over here so that she could be with her family."

Something about his voice made Aral's eyes narrow a little. "What did you do in Equinox?" he asked.

"I didn't do anything!" Kells blurted out. Aral made a half-ironic calming gesture-- _no, that's not what I meant_ \--and waited for Kells to realise he wasn't being interrogated. "Oh. Sorry," Kells said. "I was a primary school teacher."

And now he was scrubbing Aral's hospital floor. Somehow, Aral didn't think this was his first choice of occupation. "But not here," he said. Kells shook his head. It couldn't be some security thing; if ImpSec had allowed him to be in this room with Aral now, he must have passed the full background check and have a spotless record. It had to be the other reason, the hard one, that nobody here would hire a Komarran man to teach primary school children.

His mind was still far too hazy, but he recalled the Minister for Education complaining about the chronic shortage of teachers. Not chronic enough, Aral thought grimly.

"What happened out there?" he said finally, with a flick of his fingers towards the corridor.

Kells was silent, seeming to fold in on himself again.

"Then I'll tell you," Aral said. "Little things, all the time, every day, hazing that doesn't stop, just because you're..." He ran out of breath then, and his gasps turned to painful coughing that made black spots dance in his vision and had Kells reaching in alarm for the medical call button by the bed. Aral's hand closed around his wrist, and he shook his head a little, trying to exert his will over his body. He gestured for the glass of water on the stand, and Kells looked at him uncertainly, and then helped him drink a few sips, raising Aral's head in his hands. Aral felt the calm gentleness of the man, and had no difficulty picturing him in charge of a class of small children.

"All right," Kells said, "you don't have to say it. Yes. Being a Komarran here is a little slice of hell, every day."

His words made Aral flinch, spoken with such pent-up anger and anguish. He got control of his breathing enough to say, "I never wanted..." But what did Kells care what he had wanted and what he hadn't?

Kells stood before him, a silent reproach. "Is there anything I can do?" Aral thought to ask.

Kells's look at him was eloquent. All right, Aral supposed, he was too sick to sit up or finish a long sentence, he probably wasn't going to be any help to anyone right now.

"I need to keep going--I'm running late already," Kells said finally.

Indeed. Aral nodded. "Thank you," he whispered, then tried to add, "I'm sorry," but he had run out of breath completely and could only shape the words with his lips. Kells looked at him steadily for a moment, then returned to his work. Aral watched him with eyes blurring with exhaustion. Kells was right. What use to him was a Prime Minister who was more dead than alive? Besides, Cordelia had firmly forbidden all politics.

When you had no strength, Aral knew, then the only thing left was to make your weaknesses into weapons. He thought about that and he watched Kells mop the floor and run the sonic cleaner, until even the effort of holding his eyes open was more than he could manage. As he fell back asleep, his last thought was that he needed someone who wasn't afraid of Cordelia.

*

When he next woke, feeling no more rested despite fourteen hours of sleep, he had visitors. Alys and Ivan were sitting by his bed, and Ivan looked like he'd pay cash to get away. Aral didn't blame him. He'd pay to get away from here too.

"Ah, Aral," Alys said, seeing him awake. "Cordelia was here earlier, but you slept through her visit. She's off at ImpSec now, but they don't have any further updates about how Lord Mark's trip to Jackson's Whole is going."

That was Alys, he thought. All the news he wanted, brisk and efficient, without him having to say a word. He nodded his thanks, since it seemed churlish to speak in answer. Besides, he was going to need his breath. He summoned all the strength he had, which wasn't much.

"Ivan," he said, "go and find the hospital manager and tell him from me ... that all of his employees should be under his protection. Not just the Barrayarans."

Ivan stared at him. Alys said, "You shouldn't be worrying yourself with that kind of thing."

What should I be worrying about, Aral wanted to ask her. Whether they're going to be able to grow me a new heart before this one gives out completely? Whether my son is alive or dead? Whether my other son is an assassin? But he couldn't say any of that now, because he only had the strength for one conversation, and it wasn't that one.

Ivan continued to gape at him. But if those worries did come true, then Ivan would have to deal with much more difficult problems than a hospital manager. Time for him to start being useful. Aral made a dismissing gesture, and Ivan said, "Um... all right, Uncle Aral," and fled.

Aral smiled.

Alys gave him a long thoughtful look. "Is there a problem?" she asked. "Can I do anything?"

"Yes," Aral said, efficiently answering both questions at once. "I want you to take care of the Komarrans."

He could see Alys' mind working to decipher this so that he wouldn't have to say more than he was able, and wondered yet again how so bright a woman had come to have such a son.

"You mean the full equality legislation? That's never going to go through, Aral, no matter how many times you try. Hating the Komarrans is so much less dangerous than hating each other, especially right now."

"Tell them--tell them I want it now."

Her eyes widened as she understood the ploy he was suggesting. A dirty trick, of course, but it was his dirty trick and he'd paid for this one the hard way. He'd only get one sympathy vote, one vote where everyone remembered the great Admiral Vorkosigan and supported something because he wanted it and he was desperately ill. But he knew which one he wanted it to be. Alys would know how to do it, would know whose buttons to press, who would respond to an appeal from Aral Vorkosigan from his sickbed when they wouldn't respond to anything else. This damnable heart business would be good for one thing, at least, something that would last whatever happened to him.

"Well, if you're sure... all right," Alys said. "I'll get it started for you." She paused. "One condition."

He raised an eyebrow.

"You give me your word you won't worry about this any further. You need to rest, my dear, not worry about politics."

If she was doing it, he wouldn't have to worry. "My word," he said softly, and Alys nodded, taking his hand.

He closed his eyes again, but forced them open when he heard Ivan returning.

"Well?" Aral croaked.

"He says he'll look into it," Ivan said. "He didn't like it, but I said Aunt Cordelia would come and yell at him if anything disturbed you and that included personnel problems, and that made him change his mind." Ivan paused. "What was that all about, anyway? No, sorry, don't answer that."

Aral smiled a little. "Good work, Ivan."

Ivan looked absurdly proud of himself at that.

"Cordelia will be back again later this evening," Alys said. "I'll go get started for you now." She leaned down and kissed his cheek. "It'll all be fine. Don't worry."

She sounded so confident he almost believed it.

*

Aral hadn't known, before, that it was possible to be so exhausted. Even concentrating on the voices around him was hard now.

"It went through, Aral." That was Alys. "The Joint Council had a majority of nine. Racozy was amazing."

That meant something. He knew that meant something. Like a rusted-up machine, his mind creaked on. The Komarran legislation. It had gone through. He'd wanted that. It felt unreal, an event a thousand miles and a thousand years away.

"Do you think he can hear us?"

"I don't know." That was his Captain, and something must be terribly wrong to make his Captain sound like that. He had to fix it. But he was so tired...

There were some other sounds, the door opening, voices.

"Oh, the floor, yes. We'll just step outside." A kiss on his forehead. "We'll be right back, love."

Then silence. Then a quiet splashing sound, soothing to listen to. He didn't have to think about it, it was just there, a little background noise that let him rest and remember that he was still alive.

The splashing stopped, and a Komarran-accented voice said, very close, "I suppose it's a start." A hand, a little damp, touched his. "You can't hear me, can you... well then. Thank you." The hand drew back.

Aral couldn't quite remember what this was all about, but it left him feeling unexpectedly pleased, which lasted until he heard Kells--how had he known that name?--leaving and Alys and Cordelia coming back.

"Two more days until the transplant, that's all," Cordelia said, still in that strained unhappy voice. She took his hand. "Just hold on for two more days, you hear me?"

Even here and now, he thought, he could change the world. It wasn't over yet. With all the strength he had, he squeezed her hand.


End file.
